Filenews 11 October 2021
A subversive theory about the origins of the coronavirus was presented by the Telegraph.
The British newspaper points out that scientists have not yet settled on where the coronavirus came from, but some scientists say it may have eventually originated from ... Man.
Subversive theory about the origins of the coronavirus
Specifically, Dr. Jonathan Latham, executive director of the US Bioscience Resource Project, believes that the coronavirus may have evolved in the body of an infected Chinese mine worker nearly a decade before the start of the pandemic.
The crucial thing is that samples of the miner's enigmatic disease were sent for study to coronavirus researchers in Wuhan, from where the virus may have escaped to the population, he argues.
Dr Latham says the appearance of the Alpha variant in Kent, Britain, last fall proves that the coronavirus can make "strange evolutionary leaps" and quickly develop a large number of mutations when it has been inside a person for a long time.
Earlier this year, the University of Cambridge concluded that the alpha hyper-molyss variant probably evolved into a single immuno-compromized patient who had the disease for many months.
Hundreds of mutations
Speaking at a BMJ webinar on the origins of the pandemic, Dr. Latham said:
"The theory requires several hundred mutations in a coal mine to turn into Sars-Cov-2. Decades were squeezed in about six months. But we have heard of the amazing phenomenon of isolated cases of very accelerated evolution of viruses in Britain. In this one person in England there has been as much development as has happened in millions of other infections. Our theory suggests that a similar development was happening inside the miners' lungs after the mysterious disease in 2012 and claims that the virus leaked from a medical sample taken from miners infected with the epidemic."
Back in 2012, six miners who shovelled bat guano at the Tongguan mine in Yunnan became seriously ill with a disease that looked like pneumonia and had a striking resemblance to the coronavirus. Three of them died and the rest were hospitalized for up to six months.
A Chinese researcher who investigated the deaths for his graduate thesis concluded that they were most likely infected with a Sars-like coronavirus that comes from bats.
The virus was discovered in caves
Just a year after the deaths, Wuhan scientists discovered in the same caves a virus called RaTG13, which was later found to be 96% identical to Covid-19, but must have diverged 40 years earlier.
However, the new theory suggests that evolution from a virus like RaTG13 could have occurred much faster inside the body of a miner. "We know that coronaviruses were plentiful near the mine, and we know that some of the miners were hospitalized for a long time," Dr. Latham added.
"Their treatment lasted six months and allowed for the evolution of new adapted human coronaviruses. We know that many medical samples were sent to the Wuhan Institute so the question is, what was there in the samples and what happened to the viruses found?" he said.
Scientists investigating the origins of the pandemic have repeatedly asked for details of the sequences of viruses housed and studied at the Wuhan Institute of Hood. But a database containing details of the samples was shut down shortly before the start of the pandemic.
Alison Young, director of the Chair at the Missouri School of Journalism, also told the webinar that leaks of dangerous viruses from labs were common around the world and had led to epidemics in the past.
"One of the arguments is that laboratory experiments are extremely rare events," he said. "Laboratory accidents are not uncommon. In the U.S. in 2020, 134 cases of exposure to viruses, bacteria and toxins were reported in laboratories, which are regulated by the U.S. government. Laboratory accidents and exposures occur frequently."
French genome analyst Dr Jacques van Helden, who recently co-signed a letter to the Lancet calling for an objective debate on the origins of Covid-19, said a new regulation is needed to stop laboratories from doing tasks that could trigger a pandemic. "I want to understand what really happened and so far I don't think we have the answer," he said.
"We need to review our internal regulations. Regardless of the origin of this virus we know that there are several laboratories that do experiments that are of concern because they produce viruses that are potential pandemics," he said.
